Difference between revisions of "Any"

Revision as of 12:36, 18 March 2020

The word any is made up of an (one) plus the adjective suffix "-y"

Quantifier

Some people call any a quantifying adjective, others refer to it as a quantifying determiner.

It is most often used with uncountable nouns and with plural countables, in questions and negative sentences (not... any)

• Do you have any idea who wrote this?

when unstressed: une idée, when stressed: le moindre idée

• Have you seen any good movies lately?

when unstressed: un bon film, des bons films; when stressed: au moins un bon film

• There aren't any chocolates left.

plus de chocolats

• I don't have any time free this week. Maybe next Thursday?

pas de temps

Pronoun (Fused NP head)

• Late at night, you could hear that the building was full of mice. I never saw any in my apartment, though. Neither did my cat. ^^

Prefix

anything

anyone / anybody

anywhere

anyway / any way / [anyhow]

any which way

any old way, however you please, n'importe comment

Cf. every which way -- dans tous les sens

any time